


Man-Killer

by flollius



Series: Tracing Lines [4]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:05:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flollius/pseuds/flollius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was small and pale, eyes astonishingly blue. Fatherless. Dirty-born. Destined for nothing.</p><p>She drew lines in the dust, hummed prayers to dark spirits in her throat.</p><p>She saw the future and it pleased her.</p><p>(My take on Azog's past)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man-Killer

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not exactly sure why I wrote this. I guess because I thought it would be a little more interesting to flesh Azog's backstory out a little bit, to put some roots down to make all sorts of thematic connections and parallels.
> 
> Also I love love LOVE the idea that Azog is supposedly fated to die by a dwarf of Durin's line, which is why he is so desperate to wipe them out. 
> 
> Which also makes his own death more deliciously meaningful on a number of levels.

She called him Man-Killer.

He was small and pale, eyes astonishingly blue. Fatherless. Dirty-born. Destined for nothing.

She drew lines in the dust, hummed prayers to dark spirits in her throat.

She saw the future and it pleased her.

-

She died in a trance-sickness and Man-Killer was handed over to an orphanage. Forty-two screaming, blubbering children poked at Man-Killer’s white skin, sneered at him, laughed and cajoled. Man-Killer learned to bite and scratch, his teeth were long and cruel and his nails were sharp. He sharpened his canines on a whetstone until they were knife-pointed.

They grew afraid of Man-Killer. They whispered when he walked past and shrank away from him. He smiled at their fear.

-

Man-Killer was thrown out of the orphanage and he joined the army. He saw his destiny, forged in blood and fire. He ran his tongue over his sharpened teeth, flexed his powerful arms, and knew that he was born for nothing else but this.

He joined the rank-and-file, he found himself in a knot of soldiers used as arrow-fodder for invading men. Man-Killer was pierced with three arrows over the next two years, but he refused to fall.

-

He went to a witch to seek out his fate. She had been right before, many times. Orcs said the gods spoke through her. He was six-and-a-half feet tall, his arms and chest thick with muscle. He was a mountain of carved marble. Man-Killer knelt before her, let her read the lines of his hands. She threw bones on the fire and rolled her eyes back in her head and muttered hoarsely.

She told him he would be a king.

She told him he would die by Durin’s hand.

-

He was patient, Man-Killer. He waited. Seasons passed, he slowly edged his way further and further through the ranks. He grew thicker, stronger, more powerful. He eyed the current king, a flabby, grey lump of an orc, with disgust.

He led a squadron. Then a platoon. Then a company. Then a battalion.

Fifteen years after he first joined the army, Man-Killer commanded a regiment of two thousand orcs. They were footsoldiers, poorly armed and armoured. But they were his orcs and they would die for him.

He sought out those who questioned orders, who disobeyed authority. He spoke to them privately. He promoted those he liked and beheaded those he didn’t. And fifteen years after he first joined the army, Man-Killer had twelve captains who would commit treason in his name.

-

But still he waited.

He waited for the orc-king to grow fatter, flabbier, greyer. Until he lolled on his throne and could barely stand. He waited for a grand feast, where his wives and whelps would cluster around him.

And then he struck. He struck with a cold, calculated brutality. Man-Killer and his twelve captains murdered the orc-king, his three wives and his sixteen children, leaving the blood to pool beneath the bodies. They caught the generals before they could escape, leaving guts spilling out over the stone. The guards were weak; they crumbled at the sight.

And Man-Killer was king.

-

It was a hard-fought winter. Man-Killer suppressed uprisings and rebellions, mutters of discontent and plots on his life. He collected their heads, placed them on pikes outside the Main Hall after he slowly broke their bodies. The stone passageway became lined with severed heads, the flesh rotting and falling away.

He took a wife, a sturdy young thing with skin almost as pale as his. She bore him a son and died in the act. He named the child Bloodthirsty and declared a new line had been drawn beneath the stone of Moria.

-

The battle of Azanulbazar brought Man-Killer’s destiny to his doorstep.

Thrór, Thráin, Thorin, and Frerin. Man-Killer stared at them with a snarl. He lifted his mace in the air and swore that he would end every single one of them and wipe the line out. He would not allow the witch’s premonition to pass. He thought himself above the Creators.

Frerin was the first to fall. Such a frail, flimsy little thing. Man-Killer took pleasure in slowly pulling him apart. He hamstrung his legs, so he couldn’t run away. Broke his fingers, so he couldn’t grasp a sword. Gouged out his eyes, so he couldn’t see. And then Man-Killer’s punishment really began.

Thrór was driven to grief and madness at what Man-Killer had done. He rushed at the orc-king with his axe held high. Man-Killer was waiting. He held up the head to Throrin, the last heir to stand on the battlefield, making sure the young dwarf saw what he had done.

Oh, he did.

-

He howled and screamed. Not in agony, but in humiliation. He looked down in terror at the bloodied stump of his arm, the witch’s words running through his head. _He would die by Durin’s hand._ They plastered maggots to the dead flesh, thrust an iron mace through his arm so it wasn’t entirely useless, and prayed to the Creators to spare Man-Killer from his fated end.

Man-Killer defied the gods and he lived.

-

Over a hundred years passed, and Man-Killer grew stronger. He watched Bloodthirsty grow, gifted him his stone-sharpened canine. He loved his son fiercely, raised him with a vicious pride. He had started a new line of orc-kings and he would not let his dynasty wither and die.

He grew anxious but never impatient. Man-Killer increased his hold on the Misty Mountains, pushing the borders of his tribe further. It became a province, then a realm, then an empire. Orcs paid him tribute as far south as Mordor. Man-Killer ruled with cruel force and violence, with Bloodthirsty at his side, always, always waiting for the son of Durin to resurface.

Man-Killer would end the line fated to kill him.

He would defy the gods.

And the name _Azog_ would hang on the dwarves’ lips until the earth crumbled to dust.


End file.
